14 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN squeezing hinlseIf into lr. Iicawber as if into a promise of teetotalism. Edna lVIay Oli- ver is prett) good as Aunt Betsey; so is Basil Rathbone as !vIr. !vIurdstone. It being 1935, and this being an 11:-G-:Vl production, nobody quite managed to get Roland Young to keep the charm out of Uriah Heep. (Regency; July 20-22.) DAY FOR NIGHT (1973)-François Truffaut made this tribute to the conventional 1110vies that once gave him pleasure, and apparently stilJ do. He himself plays a director who is shoot- ing an American-financed film called "]\Ieet Pamela,'. "with Jean-Pierre Leaucl, Jean- Pierre Aumont, Jacqueline Bisset. and Va- 1entina Cortese. "Day for Night," unfortu- natel) ordinary in its 1.pproach to charac- ter, is very childlike-filled with a deeply innocent love of the Inagic of moviemaking. There's not much to it, though it's graceful. In French. (10/15/73) (Quad Cinenla; through July 22.) THE DAY OF THE LocusT-John Schlesinger's over- blown version of Nathanael 'iVe"t's novel- an aesthete's vievv of society. set in Los An- geles in the thirties in whféh the culturally debased people bring on the apocalypse. There wouldn't be much to remel11ber from the movie if it weren't for a few of the per- formers-Burgess l\leredith as an old vaude- villian, Billy Barty as a macho dwarf, and \Villiam .Atherton in the thankless role of the artist, Tod. (5/12/75) (Cinema 1.) DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939 )-Marlene Dietrich's début in horse opera, slyly mocking about \Vesterns, herself, and \\ ha t audiences expect of both. With Una 11:erkel and James Stew- art. (Carnegie Hall Cinenla; July 19.) DINNER AT EIGHT (1933)-Jean Harlow, with her bee-stung pucker and her tinny voice, at her comic best. George Cukor directed this witty version of the Ferber-Kaufman play. ",ith a fahulous cast that includes 1\1arie Dressler, John Barrymore, Lee Tracy, vVallace Beery, and Edmund Lowe (Regency; ')tarting July 23.) THE DROWNING POOL-A poor film, apart froln a clinlactic water problem In a hydrotherapy chamber, and apart from the talents, quiz- zicality, and technical grace together of J 0- înne \Voodward and Paul Newman. They have the unstressed humor and the readine')s for risk to play opposite each other in Resto- ration comedy, or in Shaw; they shouldn't be misspent in a private-eye story like this, full of dull-eyed mock sophistication and steanlY ideas of the South The picture, directed by Stuart Rosenberg, is a trite celebration of the old male-loner myth that still ';;;0 often con1es up in \Vesterns. heroin-smuggling stories thrillers, tales of vigilantes, \vhatever. (6/30/75) (Loews To\ver East) EARTHQUAKE-L.A. gets it. The picture is c;;wil1, but it's entertaining-a 11larathon of Grade- A destruction effects, with B-picture stock characters spinning through it. Among them are A va Gardner the grimly resolute Charl- ton Heston, and Geneviève Bujold. Mark Robson directed. (12/2/74) (New Embassy.) THE EIGER SANCTION-.A,. suc;;pense filnl, directed by, and with, Clint Eastwood. (72nd Street East; through July 22.) END OF THE ROAD (I070)-The John Barth 1958 novel is about a triangle in an acadelnic setting, and the best scenes in the movie are the qtiiet ones that are closest to the spirit of the book. But most of the tÏtne the director, Araln Avakian, and his co-screenwriters, Dennis 11cGuire and Terry Southern, fever- ishly pound uc:: with shock effects and apoca- lyptic mes')ages. Gordon \Villis's can1erawork is often beautiful, the optical effects are sometimes elegant, and the sets and detailc;; are often remarkably fine, but the absurdist point of view has too self-congratulatory a tone. Guns and Alnerican flags are the running shticks of the mo\, ie, and the per- former') (Stacy Keach as the catatonic hero, Dorothy Tristan, Harris Y ulin, and James Earl Jones) are intercut \vith mushroOln clouds, atrocities, and the moon shot (Elgin; July 22.) FIVE EASY PIECES (19....0)-Jack Nicholson plays the throw-out of a gIfted, sedate family of musicians. He has the same musical gift, but prefers to squander it as he squanders his life. He has a delicate ear for auspicious be- ginnings, and when time gives out on him he knows how to run. Bob Rafelson directed (Quad Cinema; through July 22. . . . CJI OIYln- pia; starting July 23.) S-M-r-W-T-F-S 20' 21 1221 : I : 1 18 1 19 THE FLYING DEUCES (1939)- \Vith Laurel & Irardy, directed by Edward Sutherland. (El- gin; July 23.) FOOTliGHT PARADE (1933)-One of the more cel- ebr<:lÌed early vVarner Brothers musicals-sil- l) but from time to time irresistibly wonder- ful. The young James Cagney dances and shows off his Olivier-like eyes, Joan Blondell is tough and honest, Dick Powell sings smne good songs, and Ruby Keeler dances while bending down anxiously to watch her leaden feet })irected by Lloyd Bacon, choreography by Busby Berkeley. (Carnegie Hall Cinema; July 20.) THE FORTUNE-Charmless slapstick farce, set in the twenties, vVarren Beatty and Jack "\ich- olson are the mercenary clowns who fumble in their attempts to kill an heiress (Stockard Channing) for her money. !vIike Nichols di- rected, tronl Adrien Joyce's screenplay. ( Coronet.) 42ND STREET (1933)-This big, cheerful \Varners tnusical was an unofficial remake of the 1929 "On \\ ith the Show," but it gave new life to the cliches that have kept parodists happy; \\ hat's surprising is how organic the cliches once were. The cast includes \Varner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, George Brent, and Ginger Rogers. The songs, by Al Dubin and Harry \Varren, include "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and "You're Getting to Be a Habit with 1Ie." Lloyd Bacon di- rected (Carnegie Hall Cinema; July 20.) FRENCH CONNECTION II-Directed by John Frank- enheimer (the first film was \Villiam Fried- kin's), ",ith Gene Hackman cast again a') Popeye Doyle the foul-nlouthed killer cop of New York, who is nO\\l in :ivlarseilles. Photo- graphed by Claude Renoir (nephe"w of Jean Renoir) v ith too many slam-bang closeups. Visually as well as morally, the film lnakes you uncertain where its feet are. (6/2/75) (Art, U. A. East, and N ew Yorker.) FUNNY FACE (1957)-Fred Astaire as an l\..ve- doni"h fashion photographer, and Audrey Hepburn as a Village intellectual he uses as an offbeat tnodel, in a big Stanley Donen nlU- sical that isn't all it should be. You keep wanting it to turn into wonderful romantic fluff, but it's only spottily successful. The script i weak, particularly in Astaire's role, and whose terrible idea was it to make a Sartre-like thinker into the villain-a phi- landering phony? Still, the color is lovely, Hepburn is a charming sidekick for Astaire, and Kay Thompson does an agreeable turn as a hardboiled brac;;sy editor. And the fa- miliar Gershwin songs are lighthearted in just the right, stunmery way. (Theatre 80 St. 11: arks ; starting July 24.) FUNNY LADy-As Fanny Brice, Barbra Streisand is no longer human; she's like a bitchy fe- male impersonator imitating Barbra Strei- sand. The picture is overproduced and chop- pily edited; a great deal of talent has been badly used. With James Caan. (3/17/75) (Columbia II Waverly, and Loews 83rd St.) THE GODFATHER. PART II-Far more complexly beautiful than the first film. The completed work, contrasting the early manhood of Vito (Robert De Niro) \vith the life of l'Iichael, his inheritor (AI Pacino), i an epic vision of the corruption of America. Directed by F rancis Ford Coppola. (12/23/74) (Gramer- cy; through July 22.) GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)- early four hours of Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and thousands of others. Parts of them, that is. \Vith the widening of the image, the actors have been reduced to torsos. (Olympia; through July 22.) GRAND IllUSION (1937)-The subtle barriers of class among a group of prisoners and their captors during the FIrst \Vorld \Var. \Vith Erich von Stroheim, Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, and 11arcel Dalio. Jean Renoir di- rected this great elegy for the death of the old European aristocracy, and it is one of the true masterpieces of the screen. In French. (Bleecker St. Cinema; July 21-22.) THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940 )-Chaplin plays a small-time Jewish barber and doubles as a Inock Hitler called Hynkel dictator of To- TIlania, \vho argues \vith apaloni, dictator of Bacteria. He is helped on by Herring and Garbitsch. The notion of a 1940 farce about Hitler and anti-Semitism works out much less queasily than it sounds. The famous sequence when Hynkel lies on his back and tosses around a' balloon inscribed \vith a map of the world is a miracle of high-flying, mordant fun. But the last impassioned speech about peace and unity still wrecks everything that has gone before; Chaplin nla"\\ kish can al- ways overrule Chaplin the innocent mÎ111e. (Carnegie Hall Cinema; July 23.) HALLelUJAH! (1929)- The first all-talking, all- Negro filn1 out of Hollywood, and inevitably highly controversial. The story, about a coun- try man and a bad woman, involves church TIleetings and the singing of ')pirituals and a cha e across a swamp, and the attitudes are certain to offend many, but King Vidor di- rected, and there are impressive ')equences. With Daniel L. Haynes and Nina 11:ae Mc- Kinney; songs by Irving Berlin. (Regency; July 17-19. . . . fJJ Theatre 80 St. 1iarks; July 18- 1 9.) THE HAPPY HOOKER-\Vith Lynn Redgrave as Xaviera Hollander Directed by Nick Sgarro. (Playboy; starting July 23.) HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)-The love story of Harold (Bud Cort), alnlost hventy, and 11aude (Ruth Gordon), almost eighty. Di- rected by Hal A.shby. (8th St. Playhouse; through Julv 22.) THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILlES (1939 )-":\lur- del', my dear \Vatson," Holmes announces, with undisguised satisfaction, in this hand- some, gripping, semi-serious version of the Conan Doyle story-the first appearance of Rasil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. Im- TIlaculately right in the role, Rathbone played Holmes suavely (though \vith diminishing 'vit) for the next eight years, always with Nigel Bruce as his bUlnbling Dr. \Vatson Here, among the moors and mists, Holmes investigates the mystery involving "the foot- prints of a gigantic hound." and at the end he actually says, "Quick, W ats0n the needle." The cast includes fatuous!) dimpled Richard Greene, and Lionel Atwill. \Vendy Barrie. John Carradine, E. E. Clh e, and Ralph Forbes. Sidney Lanfie1d directed. (D. \V. Griffith; starting July 17.) IF . . . (1969)-A.n odd epic on g errilla war- fare in an English boarding school, cOlnbin- ing a cold and queasy view of youth with a romantic view of violence. Directed by Lind- say A.nderson. \Vith !VIalcolm 11:cDowel1. (Elgin; July 18-19.) LOVE You I Kill You (1971)-The debut in feature films of Uwe Brandner a young German writer, who here directs a filnl that is ahnost entirely wordless. A.n allegory about Fascism, sheeplikeness, unplaced chauvinism, sadomasochism, with the fervor drained out of politics and the pleasure out of sex. The slo\v chunp of indifferently violent events, standing for everything and nothing, takes place in an innocently dumb-looking Hansel- and-Gretel small town. The film is brittle, chilling, brilliant, and terrifyingly theoreti- cal. In German. (Carnegie Hall Cinema; July 24.) JAws-Don't bite. (34th St. East, and Loe\vs Orpheum.) JULES AND JIM (I962)-One of the few French masterpieces of the sixties. François Truf- faut's lyrical celebration of the lives of three bohemians (Henri Serre, Jeanne 11:oreau. and Oskar \V erner) from the First \iV or Id \iV ar to the Second In French. (Bleecker St. Cine- nla; July 18-19.) KAMOURASKA-With Geneviève Bujold and Richard Jordan, directed by Claude J utra. In French. (Reviewed in this issue.) (68th St Playhouse. ) KING 'OF HEARTS (1967)-Philippe de Broca lnakes a lulling and rather winsome period comedy about a 1"918 soldier in an evacuated village now inhabited only by zoo animals and lunatics in fancy dress "VVith Alan Bates. In French and English. (Elgin; July 17 and 24.) LACOMBE. LUCIEN-About a boy who has an emp- ty space where feelings beyond the purely instinctual are expected to be. The time is 1944, and the boy-a French peasant-goes to work each day hunting down and torturing people for the Gestapo. The director, Louis 11alle, casts as Lucien a teen-age country boy (Pierre Blaise) who can respond to e\ ents